Frightened by writer's brand of secularism

In his May 25 response to Dennis Rhodes' letter, Dave Reddall ironically misses the tenuousness, and indeed contradictions, of his own position.

In his May 25 response to Dennis Rhodes' letter, Dave Reddall ironically misses the tenuousness, and indeed contradictions, of his own position.

Mr. Reddall states that secularism and nihilism are completely separate ideas, then goes on to make the case that "secularism is based on reason and personal ethics."

It goes without saying that any ethics would have to be based on one's own opinions of right and wrong, since the atheistic individual has no higher external standard of morality to compare himself to. Logically, then, there is no problem with a secularist being a nihilist, or even a mass murderer or rapist, since that person must make moral judgments purely by his own sense of what feels right.

The secularism endorsed by Mr. Reddall is a frightening thing, and it is false to say that it mandates "leaving the world a better place," as he claims. After all, if we must each think critically about dogma, then who is he to dogmatically order me to be a good person? It almost sounds like he's trying to set up an external set of moral rules — in other words, playing God.